When a Novotel Costs More than The Peninsula, Something's Up

It’s no secret Thailand’s tourism industry is suffering from the events of the past few months, with one of our last visits showing hotels noticeably quieter than we’re used to. One hotel seems to be doing fine though, thank you very much: the Novotel Bangkok Airport.

While we’ve appreciated its 24-hour flexi policy (meaning no matter the time you check in, you have your room for 24 hours), and have overlooked somewhat high rates for Bangkok in the past for both this and its convenience being next to Suvarnabhumi’s terminal, the hotel’s rates now really seem from a completely different city.

We recently paid around 7,000THB ($225) for a night in the hotel, booking well in advance, and saw rates creeping towards $250 and up later on – more than a room in town at hotels like the The Peninsula, the St. Regis, or Sofitel So.

While our night was too short to make it worthwhile to journey into town, when a Novotel costs more than The Peninsula, it feels a little too much like “captive audience, make your own rates” to us. Rates at Novotels in Bangkok itself also run at about a third of their sibling at the airport. All we can say is that we hope the opening of Le Méridien Suvarnabhumi in a few months’ time will bring some much-needed competition.

[Photo: HotelChatter]

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Comment (1)

location location location

As supposedly Mr Hilton said many years ago the 3 most important points for a hotel are: Location, Location and Location.
This will give you the answer to your above, a bit unfair comment, as comparing airport-hotel room-rates to downtown location is like comparing apples to oranges.